US military to train Iraqi Special Forces in Jordan

The US will resume training soldiers from the Iraqi Special Forces in Jordan as Washington seeks to increase US support for the Iraqi government in its war against Islamist militants, a US official said yesterday.

The official, who asked not to be named, said that come June, a small number of US Special Forces will participate in training the Iraqi forces to fight terrorism.

The official said the training programme is similar to an initial training course to counterterrorism carried out by US forces with the Jordanian and Iraqi forces in Jordan earlier this year and will include 50 soldiers from the US, Iraq and Jordan.

The official said “the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is our enemy as well as Iraq’s and we want to continue supporting them in this fight”. Dubbed ISIS, the group is an Al-Qaeda inspired group which is active in Iraq and Syria.

The additional counterterrorism training suggests President Barack Obama’s administration’s continued fear of the increasing violence in Iraq, where bloodshed has returned to levels not seen since the height of the sectarian conflict that followed the US invasion in 2003.